ALAN TITCHMARSH ON There’s a lot less sex in this book as I can’t bear to read saucy scenes aloud

SEX has often been fertile ground for green-fingered heartthrob novelist Alan Titchmarsh – until now.

The TV gardening guru has pruned the rumpy pumpy from his latest book but left the romance to blossom.

So why has the digging woman’s crumpet had such a radical change of heart about the birds and the bees?

Well, it seems Britain’s best loved gardener is just too embarrassed to read the saucy scenes aloud.

This from a man whose waxwork in Madame Tussauds apparently needs extra attention from the cleaners to wipe away lipstick kisses left by fans.

Alan’s charm has even been recognised by the Queen.

When awarding him an MBE in 2000 she said: “You give a lot of ladies a lot of pleasure.”

The problem arises for Alan when he has to record his books.

Speaking in his soft Yorkshire accent, the 69-year-old said: “My first book was a bit of a romp.

“But when you come to record the audiobook – that’s when you get your comeuppance.

Magnetism

“When you’ve got to sit in a room on your own, with a sheet of glass between you and a very large, bearded man twiddling knobs, and say the words.”

The Gardeners’ World legend still seems haunted by 1998’s Mr Macgregor, his first effort as a budding novelist. It is the story of a TV gardener with a fatal sexual magnetism. Not too dissimilar to Alan, some might say.

There is plenty of descriptions of “slipping” and “sliding” and hands running down bodies.

This foray into fictional slap and tickle won him an award – second place in the Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

The winner, Sebastian Faulks, didn’t show up so the gong was given to an embarrassed Alan.

There was also an awkward moment for him on Michael Parkinson’s TV chat show when the naughty bits were read out by fellow guests model Cindy Crawford and singer Ronan Keating.

But Alan need not have worried about the episode stunting his growing reputation as a writer. If anything it gained an even bigger legion of female fans and his reputation as a sex symbol took even deeper root. Sex in Alan’s latest novel, The Scarlet Nightingale, is cut back to just one sentence. The story is a Second World War thriller about a gutsy heroine going behind enemy lines to carry out a daring mission to defeat the Germans. In it, the former Ground Force host describes two of his characters as making “the gentlest of love”. He said: “There are love scenes but they are tender rather than sordid.” But although the sex is notably absent from his 11th novel, the romance is not. The great gardener knows how to protect and nurture more than just plants and shrubs.

Alan, ditching welly boots for a pair of dapper tartan brogues, said: “I’m a huge romantic. I like to think romance, care and consideration are vital parts of life. I’ve been around women in the workplace and at home, more than I have men.

“So I’m a tuned, I hope, to what women value, and endeavour to do it right.”

He has been married to Alison for 43 years and they have two daughters, Polly, 39, and Camilla, 37, and four grandchildren.

And while other women may moan that their husbands forget special occasions, the former Songs of Praise presenter doesn’t miss a trick.

He gives lucky Alison bouquets of flowers at every opportunity. He said: “It’s not just buying flowhim